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Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
A TRAVELER AT FORTY
[Illustration: Piccadilly Circus]
A TRAVELER AT FORTY
by
THEODORE DREISER
Author of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,”
“The Financier,” etc., etc.
Illustrated by W. Glackens
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1913
Copyright, 1913, by
the Century Co.
Published, November, 1913
TO
“BARFLEUR”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BARFLEUR TAKES ME IN HAND 3
II MISS X. 16
III AT FISHGUARD 24
IV SERVANTS AND POLITENESS 32
V THE RIDE TO LONDON 37
VI THE BARFLEUR FAMILY 47
VII A GLIMPSE OF LONDON 57
VIII A LONDON DRAWING-ROOM 66
IX CALLS 72
X SOME MORE ABOUT LONDON 77
XI THE THAMES 89
XII MARLOWE 95
XIII LILLY: A GIRL OF THE STREETS 113
XIV LONDON; THE EAST END 128
XV ENTER SIR SCORP 136
XVI A CHRISTMAS CALL 148
XVII SMOKY ENGLAND 171
XVIII SMOKY ENGLAND (_continued_) 180
XIX CANTERBURY 188
XX EN ROUTE TO PARIS 198
XXI PARIS! 211
XXII A MORNING IN PARIS 225
XXIII THREE GUIDES 238
XXIV “THE POISON FLOWER” 247
XXV MONTE CARLO 255
XXVI THE LURE OF GOLD! 264
XXVII WE GO TO EZE 275
XXVIII NICE 288
XXIX A FIRST GLIMPSE OF ITALY 295
XXX A STOP AT PISA 306
XXXI FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME 315
XXXII MRS. Q. AND THE BORGIA FAMILY 327
XXXIII THE ART OF SIGNOR TANNI 337
XXXIV AN AUDIENCE AT THE VATICAN 345
XXXV THE CITY OF ST. FRANCIS 354
XXXVI PERUGIA 365
XXXVII THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE 371
XXXVIII A NIGHT RAMBLE IN FLORENCE 380
XXXIX FLORENCE OF TO-DAY 387
XL MARIA BASTIDA 398
XLI VENICE 409
XLII LUCERNE 415
XLIII ENTERING GERMANY 424
XLIV A MEDIEVAL TOWN 437
XLV MY FATHER’S BIRTHPLACE 449
XLVI THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT 454
XLVII BERLIN 462
XLVIII THE NIGHT-LIFE OF BERLIN 474
XLIX ON THE WAY TO HOLLAND 486
L AMSTERDAM 494
LI “SPOTLESS TOWN” 501
LII PARIS AGAIN 507
LIII THE VOYAGE HOME 515
ILLUSTRATIONS
Piccadilly Circus _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
I saw Mr. G. conversing with Miss E. 8
One of those really interesting conversations between
Barfleur and Miss X. 20
“I like it,” he pronounced. “The note is somber, but
it is excellent work” 70
Hoped for the day when the issue might be tried out
physically 74
Here the Thames was especially delightful 90
Barfleur 156
The French have made much of the Seine 228
One of the thousands upon thousands of cafés on the
boulevards of Paris 236
These places were crowded with a gay and festive throng 244
I looked to a distant table to see the figure he indicated 252
“My heavens, how well she keeps up!” 290
I sated myself on the house fronts or backs below the
Ponte Vecchio 384
There can only be one Venice 404
A German dance hall, Berlin 464
Teutonic bursts of temper 482
A TRAVELER AT FORTY
CHAPTER I
BARFLEUR TAKES ME IN HAND
I have just turned forty. I have seen a little something of life. I
have been a newspaper man, editor, magazine contributor, author and,
before these things, several odd kinds of clerk before I found out what
I could do.
Eleven years ago I wrote my first novel, which was issued by a New York
publisher and suppressed by him, Heaven knows why. For, the same year
they suppressed my book because of its alleged immoral tendencies, they
published Zola’s “Fecundity” and “An Englishwoman’s Love Letters.”
I fancy now, after eleven years of wonder, that it was not so much
the supposed immorality, as the book’s straightforward, plain-spoken
discussion of American life in general. We were not used then in
America to calling a spade a spade, particularly in books. We had great
admiration for Tolstoi and Flaubert and Balzac and de Maupassant at a
distance--some of us--and it was quite an honor to have handsome sets
of these men on our shelves, but mostly we had been schooled in the
literature of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Charles Lamb and that
refined company of English sentimental realists who told us something
about life, but not everything. No doubt all of these great men knew
how shabby a thing this world is--how full of lies, make-believe,
seeming and false pretense it all is, but they had agreed among
themselves, or with the public, or with sentiment generally, not to
talk about that too much. Books were always to be built out of facts
concerning “our better natures.” We were always to be seen as we wish
to be seen. There were villains to be sure--liars, dogs, thieves,
scoundrels--but they were strange creatures, hiding away in dark,
unconventional places and scarcely seen save at night and peradventure;
whereas we, all clean, bright, honest, well-meaning people, were living
in nice homes, going our way honestly and truthfully, going to church,
raising our children believing in a Father, a Son and a Holy Ghost, and
never doing anything wrong at any time save as these miserable liars,
dogs, thieves, et cetera, might suddenly appear and make us. Our books
largely showed us as heroes. If anything happened to our daughters it
was not their fault but the fault of these miserable villains. Most of
us were without original sin. The business of our books, our church,
our laws, our jails, was to keep us so.
I am quite sure that it never occurred to many of us that there was
something really improving in a plain, straightforward understanding of
life. For myself, I accept now no creeds. I do not know what truth is,
what beauty is, what love is, what hope is. I do not believe any one
absolutely and I do not doubt any one absolutely. I think people are
both evil and well-intentioned.
While I was opening my mail one morning I encountered a now memorable
note which was addressed to me at my apartment. It was from an old
literary friend of mine in England who expressed himself as anxious
to see me immediately. I have always liked him. I like him because he
strikes me as amusingly English, decidedly literary and artistic in his
point of view, a man with a wide wisdom, discriminating taste, rare
selection. He wears a monocle in his right eye, à la Chamberlain, and I
like him for that. I like people who take themselves with a grand air,
whether they like me or not--particularly if the grand air is backed up
by a real personality. In this case it is.
Next morning Barfleur took breakfast with me; it was a most interesting
affair. He was late--very. He stalked in, his spats shining, his
monocle glowing with a shrewd, inquisitive eye behind it, his whole
manner genial, self-sufficient, almost dictatorial and always final. He
takes charge so easily, rules so sufficiently, does so essentially well
in all circumstances where he is interested so to do.
“I have decided,” he observed with that managerial air which always
delights me because my soul is not in the least managerial, “that you
will come back to England with me. I have my passage arranged for the
twenty-second. You will come to my house in England; you will stay
there a few days; then I shall take you to London and put you up at a
very good hotel. You will stay there until January first and then we
shall go to the south of France--Nice, the Riviera, Monte Carlo; from
there you will go to Rome, to Paris, where I shall join you,--and then
sometime in the spring or summer, when you have all your notes, you
will return to London or New York and write your impressions and I will
see that they are published!”
“If it can be arranged,” I interpolated.
“It _can_ be arranged,” he replied emphatically. “I will attend to the
financial part and arrange affairs with both an American and an English
publisher.”
Sometimes life is very generous. It walks in and says, “Here! I want
you to do a certain thing,” and it proceeds to arrange all your
affairs for you. I felt curiously at this time as though I was on the
edge of a great change. When one turns forty and faces one’s first
transatlantic voyage, it is a more portentous event than when it comes
at twenty.
* * * * *
I shall not soon forget reading in a morning paper on the early ride
downtown the day we sailed, of the suicide of a friend of mine, a
brilliant man. He had fallen on hard lines; his wife had decided to
desert him; he was badly in debt. I knew him well. I had known his
erratic history. Here on this morning when I was sailing for Europe,
quite in the flush of a momentary literary victory, he was lying in
death. It gave me pause. It brought to my mind the Latin phrase,
“_memento mori_.” I saw again, right in the heart of this hour of
brightness, how grim life really is. Fate is kind, or it is not. It
puts you ahead, or it does not. If it does not, nothing can save you. I
acknowledge the Furies. I believe in them. I have heard the disastrous
beating of their wings.
When I reached the ship, it was already a perfect morning in full glow.
The sun was up; a host of gulls were on the wing; an air of delicious
adventure enveloped the great liner’s dock at the foot of Thirteenth
Street.
Did ever a boy thrill over a ship as I over this monster of the seas?
In the first place, even at this early hour it was crowded with people.
From the moment I came on board I was delighted by the eager, restless
movement of the throng. The main deck was like the lobby of one of the
great New York hotels at dinner-time. There was much calling on the
part of a company of dragooned ship-stewards to “keep moving, please,”
and the enthusiasm of farewells and inquiries after this person and
that, were delightful to hear. I stopped awhile in the writing-room
and wrote some notes. I went to my stateroom and found there several
telegrams and letters of farewell. Later still, some books which had
been delivered at the ship, were brought to me. I went back to the
dock and mailed my letters, encountered Barfleur finally and exchanged
greetings, and then perforce soon found myself taken in tow by him, for
he wanted, obviously, to instruct me in all the details of this new
world upon which I was now entering.
At eight-thirty came the call to go ashore. At eight fifty-five I
had my first glimpse of a Miss E., as discreet and charming a bit of
English femininity as one would care to set eyes upon. She was an
English actress of some eminence whom Barfleur was fortunate enough
to know. Shortly afterward a Miss X. was introduced to him and to
Miss E., by a third acquaintance of Miss E.’s, Mr. G.--a very direct,
self-satisfied and aggressive type of Jew. I noticed him strolling
about the deck some time before I saw him conversing with Miss E., and
later, for a moment, with Barfleur. I saw these women only for a moment
at first, but they impressed me at once as rather attractive examples
of the prosperous stage world.
It was nine o’clock--the hour of the ship’s sailing. I went forward to
the prow, and watched the sailors on B deck below me cleaning up the
final details of loading, bolting down the freight hatches covering
the windlass and the like. All the morning I had been particularly
impressed with the cloud of gulls fluttering about the ship, but now
the harbor, the magnificent wall of lower New York, set like a jewel
in a green ring of sea water, took my eye. When should I see it again?
How soon should I be back? I had undertaken this voyage in pell-mell
haste. I had not figured at all on where I was going or what I was
going to do. London--yes, to gather the data for the last third of a
novel; Rome--assuredly, because of all things I wished to see Rome; the
Riviera, say, and Monte Carlo, because the south of France has always
appealed to me; Paris, Berlin--possibly; Holland--surely.
I stood there till the _Mauretania_ fronted her prow outward to the
broad Atlantic. Then I went below and began unpacking, but was not
there long before I was called out by Barfleur.
“Come up with me,” he said.
We went to the boat deck where the towering red smoke-stacks were
belching forth trailing clouds of smoke. I am quite sure that Barfleur,
when he originally made his authoritative command that I come to
England with him, was in no way satisfied that I would. It was a
somewhat light venture on his part, but here I was. And now, having
“let himself in” for this, as he would have phrased it, I could see
that he was intensely interested in what Europe would do to me--and
possibly in what I would do to Europe. We walked up and down as the
boat made her way majestically down the harbor. We parted presently but
shortly he returned to say, “Come and meet Miss E. and Miss X. Miss E.
is reading your last novel. She likes it.”
[Illustration: “I saw Mr. G. conversing with Miss E.”]
I went down, interested to meet these two, for the actress--the
talented, good-looking representative of that peculiarly feminine
world of art--appeals to me very much. I have always thought, since I
have been able to reason about it, that the stage is almost the only
ideal outlet for the artistic temperament of a talented and beautiful
women. Men?--well, I don’t care so much for the men of the stage. I
acknowledge the distinction of such a temperament as that of David
Garrick or Edwin Booth. These were great actors and, by the same
token, they were great artists--wonderful artists. But in the main
the men of the stage are frail shadows of a much more real thing--the
active, constructive man in other lines.
On the contrary, the women of the stage are somehow, by right of mere
womanhood, the art of looks, form, temperament, mobility, peculiarly
suited to this realm of show, color and make-believe. The stage is
fairyland and they are of it. Women--the women of ambition, aspiration,
artistic longings--act, anyhow, all the time. They lie like anything.
They never show their true colors--or very rarely. If you want to know
the truth, you must see through their pretty, petty artistry, back to
the actual conditions behind them, which are conditioning and driving
them. Very few, if any, have a real grasp on what I call life. They
have no understanding of and no love for philosophy. They do not care
for the subtleties of chemistry and physics. Knowledge--book knowledge,
the sciences--well, let the men have that. Your average woman cares
most--almost entirely--for the policies and the abstrusities of her
own little world. Is her life going right? Is she getting along? Is
her skin smooth? Is her face still pretty? Are there any wrinkles? Are
there any gray hairs in sight? What can she do to win one man? How can
she make herself impressive to all men? Are her feet small? Are her
hands pretty? Which are the really nice places in the world to visit?
Do men like this trait in women? or that? What is the latest thing in
dress, in jewelry, in hats, in shoes? How can she keep herself spick
and span? These are all leading questions with her--strong, deep,
vital, painful. Let the men have knowledge, strength, fame, force--that
is their business. The real man, her man, should have some one of these
things if she is really going to love him very much. I am talking
about the semi-artistic woman with ambition. As for her, she clings
to these poetical details and they make her life. Poor little frail
things--fighting with every weapon at their command to buy and maintain
the courtesy of the world. Truly, I pity women. I pity the strongest,
most ambitious woman I ever saw. And, by the same token, I pity the
poor helpless, hopeless drab and drudge without an idea above a potato,
who never had and never will have a look in on anything. I know--and
there is not a beating feminine heart anywhere that will contradict
me--that they are all struggling to buy this superior masculine
strength against which they can lean, to which they can fly in the hour
of terror. It is no answer to my statement, no contradiction of it, to
say that the strongest men crave the sympathy of the tenderest women.
These are complementary facts and my statement is true. I am dealing
with women now, not men. When I come to men I will tell you all about
them!
Our modern stage world gives the ideal outlet for all that is most
worth while in the youth and art of the female sex. It matters not that
it is notably unmoral. You cannot predicate that of any individual case
until afterward. At any rate, to me, and so far as women are concerned,
it is distinguished, brilliant, appropriate, important. I am always
interested in a well recommended woman of the stage.
What did we talk about--Miss E. and I? The stage a little, some
newspapermen and dramatic critics that we had casually known, her
interest in books and the fact that she had posed frequently for those
interesting advertisements which display a beautiful young woman
showing her teeth or holding aloft a cake of soap or a facial cream.
She had done some of this work in the past--and had been well paid for
it because she was beautiful, and she showed me one of her pictures in
a current magazine advertising a set of furs.
I found that Barfleur, my very able patron, was doing everything that
should be done to make the trip comfortable without show or fuss.
Many have this executive or managerial gift. Sometimes I think it is
a natural trait of the English--of their superior classes, anyhow.
They go about colonizing so efficiently, industriously. They make fine
governors and patrons. I have always been told that English direction
and English directors are thorough. Is this true or is it not? At this
writing, I do not know.
Not only were all our chairs on deck here in a row, but our chairs
at table had already been arranged for--four seats at the captain’s
table. It seems that from previous voyages on this ship Barfleur knew
the captain. He also knew the chairman of the company in England. No
doubt he knew the chief steward. Anyhow, he knew the man who sold us
our tickets. He knew the head waiter at the Ritz--he had seen him or
been served by him somewhere in Europe. He knew some of the servitors
of the Knickerbocker of old. Wherever he went, I found he was always
finding somebody whom he knew. I like to get in tow of such a man as
Barfleur and see him plow the seas. I like to see what he thinks is
important. In this case there happens to be a certain intellectual and
spiritual compatibility. He likes some of the things that I like. He
sympathizes with my point of view. Hence, so far at least, we have got
along admirably. I speak for the present only. I would not answer for
my moods or basic change of emotions at any time.
Well, here were the two actresses side by side, both charmingly
arrayed, and with them, in a third chair, the short, stout, red-haired
Mr. G.
I covertly observed the personality of Miss X. Here was some one
who, on sight, at a glance, attracted me far more significantly than
ever Miss E. could. I cannot tell you why, exactly. In a way, Miss
E. appeared, at moments and from certain points of view--delicacy,
refinement, sweetness of mood--the more attractive of the two. But
Miss X., with her chic face, her dainty little chin, her narrow,
lavender-lidded eyes, drew me quite like a magnet. I liked a certain
snap and vigor which shot from her eyes and which I could feel
represented our raw American force. A foreigner will not, I am afraid,
understand exactly what I mean; but there is something about the
American climate, its soil, rain, winds, race spirit, which produces
a raw, direct incisiveness of soul in its children. They are strong,
erect, elated, enthusiastic. They look you in the eye, cut you with a
glance, say what they mean in ten thousand ways without really saying
anything at all. They come upon you fresh like cold water and they
have the luster of a hard, bright jewel and the fragrance of a rich,
red, full-blown rose. Americans are wonderful to me--American men and
American women. They are rarely polished or refined. They know little
of the subtleties of life--its order and procedures. But, oh, the glory
of their spirit, the hope of them, the dreams of them, the desires and
enthusiasm of them. That is what wins me. They give me the sense of
being intensely, enthusiastically, humanly alive.
Miss X. did not tell me anything about herself, save that she was
on the stage in some capacity and that she knew a large number of
newspaper men, critics, actors, et cetera. A chorus girl, I thought;
and then, by the same token, a lady of extreme unconventionality.
I think the average man, however much he may lie and pretend, takes
considerable interest in such women. At the same time there are
large orders and schools of mind, bound by certain variations of
temperament, and schools of thought, which either flee temptation
of this kind, find no temptation in it, or, when confronted, resist
it vigorously. The accepted theory of marriage and monogamy holds
many people absolutely. There are these who would never sin--hold
unsanctioned relations, I mean--with any woman. There are others who
will always be true to one woman. There are those who are fortunate if
they ever win a single woman. We did not talk of these things but it
was early apparent that she was as wise as the serpent in her knowledge
of men and in the practice of all the little allurements of her sex.
Barfleur never ceased instructing me in the intricacies of ship life. I
never saw so comforting and efficient a man.
“Oh”--who can indicate exactly the sound of the English “Oh”--“Oh,
_there_ you are.” (His _are_ always sounded like _ah_.) “Now let
me tell you something. You are to dress for dinner. Ship etiquette
requires it. You are to talk to the captain some--tell him how much
you think of his ship, and so forth; and you are not to neglect the
neighbor to your right at table. Ship etiquette, I believe, demands
that you talk to your neighbor, at least at the captain’s table--that
is the rule, I think. You are to take in Miss X. I am to take in Miss
E.” Was it any wonder that my sea life was well-ordered and that my
lines fell in pleasant places?
After dinner we adjourned to the ship’s drawing-room and there Miss
X. fell to playing cards with Barfleur at first, afterwards with Mr.
G., who came up and found us, thrusting his company upon us perforce.
The man amused me, so typically aggressive, money-centered was he.
However, not he so much as Miss X. and her mental and social attitude,
commanded my attention. Her card playing and her boastful accounts of
adventures at Ostend, Trouville, Nice, Monte Carlo and Aix-les-Bains
indicated plainly the trend of her interests. She was all for the
showy life that was to be found in these places--burning with a desire
to glitter--not shine--in that half world of which she was a smart
atom. Her conversation was at once showy, naïve, sophisticated and yet
unschooled. I could see by Barfleur’s attentions to her, that aside
from her crude Americanisms which ordinarily would have alienated him,
he was interested in her beauty, her taste in dress, her love of a
certain continental café life which encompassed a portion of his own
interests. Both were looking forward to a fresh season of it--Barfleur
with me--Miss X. with some one who was waiting for her in London.
I think I have indicated in one or two places in the preceding pages
that Barfleur, being an Englishman of the artistic and intellectual
classes, with considerable tradition behind him and all the feeling of
the worth-whileness of social order that goes with class training, has
a high respect for the conventions--or rather let me say appearances,
for, though essentially democratic in spirit and loving America--its
raw force--he still clings almost pathetically, I think, to that vast
established order, which is England. It may be producing a dying
condition of race, but still there is something exceedingly fine about
it. Now one of the tenets of English social order is that, being a man
you must be a gentleman, very courteous to the ladies, very observant
of outward forms and appearances, very discreet in your approaches to
the wickedness of the world--but nevertheless you may approach and much
more, if you are cautious enough.
After dinner there was a concert. It was a dreary affair. When it was
over, I started to go to bed but, it being warm and fresh, I stepped
outside. The night was beautiful. There were no fellow passengers
on the promenade. All had retired. The sky was magnificent for
stars--Orion, the Pleiades, the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, the Little
Dipper. I saw one star, off to my right as I stood at the prow under
the bridge, which, owing to the soft, velvety darkness, cast a faint
silvery glow on the water--just a trace. Think of it! One lone,
silvery star over the great dark sea doing this. I stood at the prow
and watched the boat speed on. I threw back my head and drank in the
salt wind. I looked and listened. England, France, Italy, Switzerland,
Germany--these were all coming to me mile by mile. As I stood there a
bell over me struck eight times. Another farther off sounded the same
number. Then a voice at the prow called, “All’s well,” and another
aloft on that little eyrie called the crow’s nest, echoed it. “All’s
well.” The second voice was weak and quavering. Something came up in
my throat--a quick unbidden lump of emotion. Was it an echo of old
journeys and old seas when life was not safe? When Columbus sailed into
the unknown? And now this vast ship, eight hundred and eighty-two feet
long, eighty-eight feet beam, with huge pits of engines and furnaces
and polite, veneered first-cabin decks and passengers!